A last-minute legislative rewrite could kill a plan to repeal Colorado’s death penalty by providing an alternative funding source to investigate the state’s 1,434 cold-case homicides.

The sweeping changes to House Bill 1274 — called “an ambush” by the bill sponsor — came together Monday just 15 minutes before the Senate was set to vote on the original version and just days before the end of the legislative session.

The original version would have ended capital punishment and used about $900,000 of the cost savings to fund a statewide cold-case team.

Hopeful but skeptical of the new draft, families of homicide victims whose killers haven’t been caught said they were waiting to see how the cash — generated by an additional $2.50 surcharge on those convicted of a crime — would be spent.

Democratic Sen. John Morse of Colorado Springs, who took the lead on the eleventh-hour alteration, estimates the surcharge would bring in an additional $1 million to be used for grants to local police jurisdictions.

“The more local we can get, the better off we will be in solving these cases,” said Morse, who teamed up with Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, to redraft the bill.

Joining them to support the amendment were the Republican caucus and Democratic Sens. Dan Gibbs of Silverthorne, Mary Hodge of Brighton, Jim Isgar of Hesperus and Lois Tochtrop of Thornton.

The Senate must give the bill final approval today and send it to the House for concurrence after that.

Time running out

Sponsor Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, blamed the amendment on some colleagues’ anxieties over the controversial topic of repealing the death penalty and said the maneuver leaves little time to work out compromises and no time for public hearings or fiscal analysis of the new draft.

“Some people are looking for ways to avoid voting on the core issue,” Carroll said. “This is a totally different bill that’s not had a public hearing. It’s gamesmanship that makes a mess of public policy.”

Carroll had the backing of a broad coalition of groups — including the families of victims of unsolved murders, whose painful stories helped push the idea that ending the death penalty could be used as a funding source for cold-case investigations.

With their needs potentially met, however, the remaining death-penalty foes in the coalition could lose one of their most poignant and persuasive voices.

Bradley Wood, director of the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry, was visibly upset after the Senate action.

“We feel like we’ve been sold down the river,” said Wood, whose organization is of one of the many religiously affiliated groups tied to HB 1274. “I don’t know what this does down the road for our chances of abolishing the death penalty.”

Advocates for the families of unsolved homicide victims will continue to push today for a state-level cold-case unit that can help smaller jurisdictions.

Gunnison resident Debra Callihan, whose cousin was killed in Boulder 26 years ago, said she’s worried that Denver would dominate a competitive grant process and said that $1 million would be more efficiently spent at a central office.

“That doesn’t go very far if you spread it out,” Callihan said. “But that money could fund a real team of specialized people at the state level.”

Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, a former Denver district attorney who pursued the death penalty unsuccessfully in seven cases, declined to weigh in on the topic before the floor debate Monday. His silence and an uncertain vote count in the Senate prompted the compromise, said Penry. The original version passed the House last month on a 33-32 vote.

While Carroll stood at the Senate lectern Monday giving her final remarks on the bill, Morse and Penry stood huddled in the back hammering out the deal.

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